Audiobooks by Terry Tempest Williams

Finding Voice For Authentic Conversation

"Terry takes us on a whirlwind tour of what it means to give voice to our own authenticity. It requires deep listening and fertile silences. She encourages us to speak “Mother Tongue” — speaking from the belly rather than the mind. She laments that in Western culture “the language of economics has power, the language of the law has power, the language of science has power. But an intelligence of the heart, an emotional intelligence, or a poetic sensibility, or even a sensibility that comes from the side, from a different angle, from a different point of view, asks us to form a different kind of shape of conversation.” In this delightfully warm and thoughtful program you’ll be dazzled by the mystery of Terry’s dying mother’s request for her to read her journals, but not until after her death. Terry found 3 shelves of journals only to discover all of them were blank. Puzzle along with Terry as she takes us from the Red Rock Wildlands of Utah to the Plains of Kenya in a far-reaching dialogue about finding one’s authentic voice. (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)"

Terry Tempest Williams (Author), Justine Willis Toms (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Essence of Erosion and Evolution

"Here we stare down our present situation without flinching but with radical hope as Williams reminds us that love and beauty is felt in chaos and heartbreak. Healing is going beyond anger; It’s a process of eroding and evolving at once. We must let go of our certainty to come back into a place of communion and communication with each other and with the earth."

Terry Tempest Williams (Author), Justine Willis Toms (Narrator)

Audiobook

Erosion: Essays of Undoing

"This program is read by the author. Timely and unsettling essays from an important and beloved writer and conservationist In Erosion, Terry Tempest Williams's fierce, spirited, and magnificent essays are a howl in the desert. She sizes up the continuing assaults on America's public lands and the erosion of our commitment to the open space of democracy. She asks: 'How do we find the strength to not look away from all that is breaking our hearts?' We know the elements of erosion: wind, water, and time. They have shaped the spectacular physical landscape of our nation. Here, Williams bravely and brilliantly explores the many forms of erosion we face: of democracy, science, compassion, and trust. She examines the dire cultural and environmental implications of the gutting of Bear Ears National Monument—sacred lands to Native Peoples of the American Southwest; of the undermining of the Endangered Species Act; of the relentless press by the fossil fuel industry that has led to a panorama in which 'oil rigs light up the horizon.' And she testifies that the climate crisis is not an abstraction, offering as evidence the drought outside her door and, at times, within herself. These essays are Williams's call to action, blazing a way forward through difficult and dispiriting times. We will find new territory—emotional, geographical, communal. The erosion of desert lands exposes the truth of change. What has been weathered, worn, and whittled away is as powerful as what remains. Our undoing is also our becoming. Erosion is a book for this moment, political and spiritual at once, written by one of our greatest naturalists, essayists, and defenders of the environment. She reminds us that beauty is its own form of resistance, and that water can crack stone."

Terry Tempest Williams (Author), Terry Tempest Williams (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Heart of the Wild

"Williams tells the story of her initiation by the living land when she was 7 years old. While taking a school trip she ended up alone, in the dark, in Mount Timpanogos Cave. For a brief but powerful moment she felt the beating heart of the mountain. She says, “For the rest of my life I’ve been trying to retrieve that sacred space I felt inside that mountain alone. I have been searching for that moment when you’re part of something so old, so deep, so true.” Take a tour with Williams and find the relevance of our national parks in the 21st century and how these public commons might bring us back home to a united state of humility. It’s Terry Tempest Williams’ hope that we learn what it is to offer our reverence and respect to the closest thing we have to sacred lands. Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan stated that our American national parks are our best idea. Williams goes on to say, “And I would argue that they are our evolving idea; it’s never one story but many stories that are rooted in these American landscapes.” She reminds us that as we visit these public lands we can tune into a stillness that is outside of all the noise, distractions, and chaos in our everyday life. “They are places where we find a united state of humility . . . We are in this deeply fractured and divided country. I think if we could listen more to each other we would find a compassion that would surprise us.” (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)"

Terry Tempest Williams (Author), Justine Willis Toms (Narrator)

Audiobook

Finding Hope and Beauty In The Dark Places

"Williams speaks out for some of the most disavowed individuals on the planet: prairie dogs, who are threatened with extinction, and Rwandan refugees. She deftly draws meaning out of moments of devastation with inspiring stories of rodents who pray at sunrise and sunset and a mother who, after losing her child to the ravages of war, creates a mosaic sunflower out of the rubble."

Terry Tempest Williams (Author), Michael Toms (Narrator)

Audiobook

Wild Heart: The Politics Of Place

"Environmental politics becomes a matter of sensual passion rather than political correctness in this rich, colorful mosaic of thoughts on wildness, landscape, animals, and humans. It sparkles with gems of insight mined from Williams' own profound sense of belonging in nature and includes the voice of the late Edward Abbey, maverick environmentalist and friend of hers."

Terry Tempest Williams (Author), Justine Willis Toms (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Meaning of Refuge

"Williams connects two catastrophic events: living downwind of atomic nuclear testing in the deserts of Utah and the record breaking flooding of the Great Salt Lake. These events have deeply affected her sense of the need for refuge. She poetically conveys to us her personal perspectives on grief, love, and the spirituality of nature, lake and desert."

Terry Tempest Williams (Author), Justine Willis Toms (Narrator)

Audiobook